Summer Games Likely to Add Five Sports to a Crowded Slate

Aaron Homoki in a skateboard competition during the 2014 X Games in Austin, Tex. It is estimated that skateboarding has more than 50 million participants globally, the vast majority under 18.Credit
Drew Anthony Smith for The New York Times

NEWBURYPORT, Mass. — In the attempt to remain relevant to the next generation, the Olympics are becoming a less exclusive club.

More sports were proposed this week for inclusion in the Summer Games in Tokyo in 2020: baseball, softball, karate, surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing.

The International Olympic Committee’s powerful executive board, which includes President Thomas Bach, must approve that list in December before the sports are put to a final vote next year, prior to the start of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

But make no mistake: the odds are greatly in favor of all the candidates’ making the cut for 2020.

This was no unilateral proposal from the Tokyo organizing committee. Instead it came after plenty of consultation with the I.O.C. leadership.

What the I.O.C. leadership wanted most was a credible youth movement, even at the risk of overloading a Summer Olympic program already creaking under the combined load of traditional mainstays (track and field, swimming and gymnastics), global juggernauts (soccer and basketball), niche diversions (trampoline, and fencing) and downright oddities (modern pentathlon).

The package of rule changes dubbed Agenda 2020 that was passed last year created the possibility of a more flexible Olympic program, and Monday’s announcement proves Bach meant exactly what he advocated.

Adding just surfing or sport climbing or skateboarding would have created a novelty ripple, like adding BMX racing in 2008. Adding all three at one time risks going over the top but sends a much stronger message and is certainly more bold and generation-shifting than simply reinstating baseball and softball, which were dropped after the 2008 Games, and adding yet another martial art in karate.

“This is really a very clever decision,” said Fernando Aguerre, president of the International Surfing Association. “There is the ultimate sport for young people on the beach and the ocean, which is surfing. There is the ultimate urban youth sport, which is skateboarding. And there is right now, the coolest, fastest-exploding outdoor sport, which is sport climbing, so they have the beach culture covered, the urban culture covered and the outdoor culture covered, which are all key pieces of the youth culture.”

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Surfers at Habushiura beach in Japan, which has two million of the world’s estimated 35 million surfers.Credit
Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

I.S.A. research estimates that there are about 35 million surfers worldwide (2 million in Japan), with 60 percent of those under age 20. Research received by the I.O.C. estimates that skateboarding has more than 50 million participants globally with a large majority under 18.

Until now, the Winter Games have been quicker to cater to youthful tastes, adding snowboarding in 1998 and more recently slopestyle.

But the Summer Games are already bursting at the seams, and what is missing so far are cuts. Adding sports to the Olympics is a much less emotional process than removing them, as made clear by the uproar generated by wrestling’s banishment from the Rio Games and the successful push to reinstate it.

There are already 28 sports inside the rings, including two new arrivals, rugby sevens and golf, for Rio in 2016. But there is no serious suggestion for now of tossing anybody out of the club for 2020 to make room for the next wave.

Instead the I.O.C. plans to allow a maximum of 500 athletes from the five new sports in 2020. That will come on top of its cap for existing sports of approximately 10,500. The new sports would add 18 extra events.

“We learned very much late in the process that they had created this cap of 500 athletes,” said Robert Fasulo, the longtime consultant who is advising Aguerre. “For me, a very clear part of the I.O.C. strategy was to avoid a big fight with the existing federations.”

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This seems an untenable long-term strategy if the Olympics are to remain manageable. But at least for 2020, this inclusive strategy should keep the stakeholders happy, even if it will only make it harder to command the spotlight with 33 sports and well over 300 medal events packed into 17 days.

The new candidates are certainly not the ones complaining about overcrowding in the marketplace.

In the last decade, sport climbing — contested on artificial rock walls indoors or outdoors — has grown exponentially. It now has an estimated six million registered participants worldwide and another 25 million unregistered, with climbing walls existing in more than 140 countries.

At MetroRock North, a climbing gym in Newburyport about 40 miles north of Boston, general manager Bryan Rafferty has seen engagement levels soar in his five years in his post.

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Rock climbing in Brooklyn. Sport climbing has an estimated six million registered participants worldwide and another 25 million unregistered, with climbing walls in more than 140 countries.Credit
Damon Winter/The New York Times

But he is convinced Olympic status could take climbing to another level: both for those in the industry and for those trying and generally failing to make a living as professional climbers.

“They are some of the most talented and incredible athletes on the planet,” Rafferty said. “Physically what they do is insane, and most of them are still scraping by on next to nothing.”

Aguerre, a gravel-voiced entrepreneur who has been the driving force behind surfing’s long Olympic campaign, was born and raised in Mar del Plata, Argentina, before moving to the United States and co-founding Reef, a sandal and surfwear company. He became president of the I.S.A. in 1994, got the federation recognized by the I.O.C. in 1995 and then traveled to its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, to present the late I.O.C. president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, with a surfboard.

It has still taken 20 more years to put surfing on the brink of the Olympics, and it comes at a time when the ability to create artificial waves is fast approaching competition grade. A new wave-pool facility opened in Wales this year, and a bigger one is set to open next year in Austin, Texas.

“I think the technology is ready,” Aguerre said. “Of course the experience of being and floating on the ocean is not the same. It’s not the same running 100 yards in the mountains on a trail and running on a track in a stadium of 50,000 people. The experience is different, but the experience of riding the wave? Yes, yes, similar.”

Skateboarding, which made it onto the Olympic short list despite issues about who should govern the sport, could join rock climbing in the urban center of Tokyo in an edgier Olympic environment than that provided by traditional street events like the marathon and the cycling road race.

The good idea here is to take the Games to the people, instead of obliging the people to trek to a stadium. Some of the old Olympic guard may catch the fever, too, with talk of a city-center relay race in track and field.

It is also a bonus in a cost-conscious Olympic era that none of the three youth-targeted sports on the Tokyo list would require a permanent stadium. But then there are no guarantees that any of them will be back on the Olympic program after Tokyo.